8d • Case studies
📊 Case Study: How I Passed a 100K Challenge in 4 Days (Process Breakdown)
This is not a post about speed, profits, or copying trades.
It’s a breakdown of the process, rules, and decisions that allowed me to pass a 100K challenge without violating discipline.
The firm was Apex Funded Traders.
The profit target was $106,000.
The total drawdown was $3,000.
There was no daily loss limit, but I imposed my own.
🛑 Rule #1: I Set My Own Daily Loss Limit
Even though there was no daily loss limit, I created one.
My personal rule:
- Max daily loss: -$500
- If hit, I stopped trading for the day
This prevented:
- Emotional spirals
- “One more trade” behavior
- Giving back gains
Having self-imposed rules mattered more than firm rules.
🧠 Rule #2: I Focused on Risk Control, Not Trade Count
I did not focus on:
- How many trades I took
- Being active
- Forcing setups
I focused on:
- Risk-to-reward (2:4 minimum)
- Clean execution
- Protecting drawdown
The number of trades is irrelevant if risk is controlled.
What matters is how much you can lose, not how often you click.
📉 Risk & Execution Framework
- Instrument: ES
- Size: 4–8 contracts
- Style: Sharp, in-and-out moves
- Goal: A few clean ticks with structure
I intentionally switched my P&L display to ticks instead of price.
This helped my psychology by:
- Reducing emotional attachment to dollar amounts
- Keeping focus on execution quality
- Preventing overreaction to fluctuations
This is not required — just something that worked for me.
📐 Strategy Context (High Level)
I traded a combination of structure-based concepts:
- Opening Range Break
- Clear rejection candles to confirm direction
- Trendlines for structure
- Entries, exits, and stops based on trendlines — not emotion
Trendlines determined:
- Where I entered
- Where I exited
- Where I was wrong
I did not chase moves.
If price didn’t respect structure, I stayed out.
🕒 Sessions Traded
I traded all sessions.
The session itself did not determine my trade.
Structure did.
If trendlines and price behavior aligned, I traded.
If not, I waited.
🧠 What Actually Made the Difference
It wasn’t:
- Speed
- Aggression
- Trade frequency
- Forcing wins
It was:
- Respecting drawdown
- Stopping when rules said stop
- Keeping risk small relative to account size
- Letting structure determine decisions
- Staying emotionally neutral
Passing quickly was a byproduct, not the goal.
⚠️ Important Reminder
This is not a recommendation or a template to copy.
Different traders have:
- Different psychology
- Different risk tolerance
- Different execution styles
The lesson here is process, not specifics.
💬 Reflection for the Community
Ask yourself honestly:
- Do you set personal loss limits even when firms don’t require it?
- Are you focused more on trade count or risk control?
- Do you trade structure — or emotion?
Passing challenges is not about being aggressive.
It’s about being controlled.
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📊 Case Study: How I Passed a 100K Challenge in 4 Days (Process Breakdown)
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